Katrina H-Wind Analysis, marginal 3 at landfall

[senorpepr]

This debate reminds me of the Raintree Lake Microburst in the Kansas City area in the late 90s. All the scientific evidence shown it was a microburst, but the public wouldn't have that. They were upset that the NWS made up the term to cover themselves for missing a tornado.

[Derek Ortt]

it was OPERATIONALLY 140 m.p.h., but as has been said many times, subject to revision


why cannot everyone undertstand that the advisory statistics are ESTIMATES and that the official readings come after the season as all of the data can be analyzed. Nobody was wrong. Carrying it as a 4 was the right thing to do operationally, and revise downward later

[Weatherfreak000]

science is bunk? You really need to live in the middle ages then when you could just burn the scientists at the stake for presenting evidence that contradicts your incorrect beliefs

There is ZERO chance of Katrina being anything higher than a 3 at landfall

Not at the 1st landfall at Buras Lousiana.



It was a Cat 4.



And if the wind speed doesn't reflect it then the damage does. There is a zero chance of you being right. Accept it.



Because you know, damage IS a factor in determining damage with hurricanes, (ANDREW)

[Derek Ortt]

damage is not a factor and was not during Andrew, and you know it weatherfreak

I am enjoying some of these amusing posts

[senorpepr]

science is bunk? You really need to live in the middle ages then when you could just burn the scientists at the stake for presenting evidence that contradicts your incorrect beliefs

There is ZERO chance of Katrina being anything higher than a 3 at landfall

Not at the 1st landfall at Buras Lousiana.



It was a Cat 4.



And if the wind speed doesn't reflect it then the damage does. There is a zero chance of you being right. Accept it.



Because you know, damage IS a factor in determining damage with hurricanes, (ANDREW)

Damage was not a factor in upgrading Andrew. Damage is not a factor in what category a system is -- wind speed is the only factor. As inaccurate as that may be, it's the way it is.

[vbhoutex]

Gentlemen I am getting ready to shut this thread down if we can not discuss respectfully.

[chadtm80]

http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=76331

[cycloneye]

David yesterday I posted 2 warnings about it.But yes if the personal debates continue it will be locked

[dhweather]

science is bunk? You really need to live in the middle ages then when you could just burn the scientists at the stake for presenting evidence that contradicts your incorrect beliefs

There is ZERO chance of Katrina being anything higher than a 3 at landfall

A pure scientist would not come to that conclusion without seeing the
evidence first hand.

[dhweather]

it was OPERATIONALLY 140 m.p.h., but as has been said many times, subject to revision


why cannot everyone undertstand that the advisory statistics are ESTIMATES and that the official readings come after the season as all of the data can be analyzed. Nobody was wrong. Carrying it as a 4 was the right thing to do operationally, and revise downward later

Or as we saw with Andrew, revise upward.

Which goes back to my basic point - if anyone wants to state their belief
of what Katrina was at landfall in Mississippi, come here and look.

I went to Hattiesburg and Collins Mississippi yesterday, 80-100 miles inland. I could not believe the amount of pure wind damage that
far inland.

[Brent]

I can't believe this debate is still going on. Good point DH...the only way to tell the strength of Katrina is to see for yourself. In this case, all this scientific BS is Junk. I know what Cat 1, 2, 3, and 4 damage looks like, and this is seriously Cat 5 damage. It's Cat 3 and 4 damage 40 miles INLAND!

Let us remember that Katrina was a very LARGE system which meant the winds lasted longer. The reason a lot of the damage is worse then Camille is because Katrina was a longer event. Look at what Cat 3 winds over 10-15 minutes do, as opposed to what Katrina did, which was Cat 3 winds over an hour or two. The damage is going to be far worse.

I still think Cat 4 in SE LA though.

[senorpepr]

it was OPERATIONALLY 140 m.p.h., but as has been said many times, subject to revision


why cannot everyone undertstand that the advisory statistics are ESTIMATES and that the official readings come after the season as all of the data can be analyzed. Nobody was wrong. Carrying it as a 4 was the right thing to do operationally, and revise downward later

Or as we saw with Andrew, revise upward.

Which goes back to my basic point - if anyone wants to state their belief
of what Katrina was at landfall in Mississippi, come here and look.

I went to Hattiesburg and Collins Mississippi yesterday, 80-100 miles inland. I could not believe the amount of pure wind damage that
far inland.

For what it's worth, the driving point of upgrading Andrew was an incorrect correction value between recon's flight level and the surface. At that point (and even before and after that time), recon underestimated wind speeds. This was corrected once more studies occurred, primarily those that included GPS dropsondes.

[senorpepr]

I can't believe this debate is still going on. Good point DH...the only way to tell the strength of Katrina is to see for yourself. In this case, all this scientific BS is Junk. I know what Cat 1, 2, 3, and 4 damage looks like, and this is seriously Cat 5 damage. It's Cat 3 and 4 damage 40 miles INLAND!

Let us remember that Katrina was a very LARGE system which meant the winds lasted longer. The reason a lot of the damage is worse then Camille is because Katrina was a longer event. Look at what Cat 3 winds over 10-15 minutes do, as opposed to what Katrina did, which was Cat 3 winds over an hour or two. The damage is going to be far worse.

I still think Cat 4 in SE LA though.

Brent makes a good point here. Removing the debate of whether Katrina was category three or four at either landfall, the point Brent makes is very valid. Maximum sustained winds are reported.

Therefore, (and I'm using a hypothetical storm so I don't upset folks over the landfall intensities of actual storms) say Hurricane X makes landfall in Miami with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph. Those category three winds are in a very small area, usually only a few square miles in area. Most of Miami will only see TS to category one with some limited areas picking up category two and three.

The difference with Katrina was that she was a much larger storm. The extreme low pressure and the extreme size allowed for the pressure gradient to be much less = lower winds. However, regardless to the lower winds, you have longer deration of those winds. In the above scenario, I mention that a small part of Miami received category three winds. Those winds lasted for a few minutes. Say Hurricane Y, which is similar in size as Katrina and similar in strength as Hurricane X, more area of Miami would receive category three winds, but the kicker would be that those areas would received the category three winds for a few hours rather than a few minutes.

I'm reminded about many severe thunderstorms here in the Plains. (Not that I'm saying Katrina was nothing more than a Plains thunderstorm -- far from the truth.) I've been through storms where we've had 100+ mph straight line winds for only a few minutes. (Microbursts). The 100+ mph events did less damage than storms where we had 50-60 mph winds for an hour or two.

[dhweather]

it was OPERATIONALLY 140 m.p.h., but as has been said many times, subject to revision


why cannot everyone undertstand that the advisory statistics are ESTIMATES and that the official readings come after the season as all of the data can be analyzed. Nobody was wrong. Carrying it as a 4 was the right thing to do operationally, and revise downward later

Or as we saw with Andrew, revise upward.

Which goes back to my basic point - if anyone wants to state their belief
of what Katrina was at landfall in Mississippi, come here and look.

I went to Hattiesburg and Collins Mississippi yesterday, 80-100 miles inland. I could not believe the amount of pure wind damage that
far inland.

For what it's worth, the driving point of upgrading Andrew was an incorrect correction value between recon's flight level and the surface. At that point (and even before and after that time), recon underestimated wind speeds. This was corrected once more studies occurred, primarily those that included GPS dropsondes.

There's that tricky little dropsonde again. We have NHC telling us they
are in desperate need of more equipment, we have a report that
the dropsondes fail more than half of the time, particularly at high
wind speeds, and that leaves us with lots of question marks of what
really happened down here.

If anyone sees the damage first hand, they'll have a much better
understanding of how strong the winds were. I've said all along
that in Mississippi, the winds were a 4, the surge was a 5+.
I don't think we had sustained 5 winds, but had gusts above 155.

Come here, listen to stories of people that rode it out. Hear that
"Things were going pretty rough, then as the eye approached, all
hell broke loose. We had a period of 20-30 minutes where trees
broke like toothpicks. Roofs came flying off - it was frightening"
as one Diamondhead resident that rode it out told me.

[senorpepr]

There's that tricky little dropsonde again. We have NHC telling us they
are in desperate need of more equipment, we have a report that
the dropsondes fail more than half of the time, particularly at high
wind speeds, and that leaves us with lots of question marks of what
really happened down here.

If anyone sees the damage first hand, they'll have a much better
understanding of how strong the winds were. I've said all along
that in Mississippi, the winds were a 4, the surge was a 5+.
I don't think we had sustained 5 winds, but had gusts above 155.

Come here, listen to stories of people that rode it out. Hear that
"Things were going pretty rough, then as the eye approached, all
hell broke loose. We had a period of 20-30 minutes where trees
broke like toothpicks. Roofs came flying off - it was frightening"
as one Diamondhead resident that rode it out told me.

First, with the dropsonde remarks -- while I understand they do fail on occasion, from what I've heard out of the recon community, they don't fail "half the time."

Regardless of that, I should state that the adjustment done with Andrew wasn't solely on dropsondes. Accredited instrumentation was studied that found the conversion was off. The dropsondes just backed that up.

Now, as for the category debate: I can only estimate like everyone else here can. We don't have all the data in front of us. However, after the hours I've spent looking into Katrina (yup, I have to do after-action reports too), the chances of these being of category three at Mississippi landfall are pretty high. As for the SW Louisiana landfall, those chances are up there too. I'm not saying it was a category three or four. However, I am saying that the chances of the NHC retaining the category three landfall for MS is rather high and the chances of the NHC dropping the rating for the LA landfall from four to three is above normal. That isn't meant as a slam for those who were affected by this storm. If anything, it should be an underscore on how serious every major cyclone is.

As for your comments about going down there and listening to the stories of those who rode out the storm... while I haven't had the chance to go there, (I was scheduled to leave yesterday to come down there, but things were cancelled) I have talked to a plethera of folks who rode out the storm along the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coast. I understand how it was down there.

[jasons2k]

FWIW it seems there are a lot of new posts with points made several pages back. I'd suggest actually reading the thread before posting so we're not rehashing the same issues over and over again, just my 2 cents.

[Valkhorn]

Come here, listen to stories of people that rode it out. Hear that
"Things were going pretty rough, then as the eye approached, all
hell broke loose. We had a period of 20-30 minutes where trees
broke like toothpicks. Roofs came flying off - it was frightening"
as one Diamondhead resident that rode it out told me.

He's exactly right. And, I'd hate to bring this up, but if Derek had rode it out like I did and many others me might not be so eager to downplay it.

I was the only apartment left to have power and that lasted until about 11 when the eye wall hit. And he's right, all hell did break loose. As if the storm wasn't bad enough, the 30-40 minutes of the eye wall hitting was just about as bad as I'll ever see it. The winds were much stronger, gusts were a lot higher, and I have seen video of 130mph wind gusts and I would equate it to that.

The peak gust I remember seeing was just like video I had seen of sustained 120-135mph winds. Sustained I would guess that it was over 90mph for at least an hour.

Mind you this is 90 miles inland from gulfport.

[Charles-KD5ZSM]

these sat. pics are from noaa. they only show an overhead view, but still show the damage caused. http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/[/url]

[jasons2k]

Come here, listen to stories of people that rode it out. Hear that
"Things were going pretty rough, then as the eye approached, all
hell broke loose. We had a period of 20-30 minutes where trees
broke like toothpicks. Roofs came flying off - it was frightening"
as one Diamondhead resident that rode it out told me.

He's exactly right. And, I'd hate to bring this up, but if Derek had rode it out like I did and many others me might not be so eager to downplay it.

I was the only apartment left to have power and that lasted until about 11 when the eye wall hit. And he's right, all hell did break loose. As if the storm wasn't bad enough, the 30-40 minutes of the eye wall hitting was just about as bad as I'll ever see it. The winds were much stronger, gusts were a lot higher, and I have seen video of 130mph wind gusts and I would equate it to that.

The peak gust I remember seeing was just like video I had seen of sustained 120-135mph winds. Sustained I would guess that it was over 90mph for at least an hour.

Mind you this is 90 miles inland from gulfport.

Derek himself overestimated Katrina's winds he personally witnessed in Florida until he looked at the data. Most people do.

Cat 3. winds would cause almost anyone to think they just rode through an F5 tornado.

[f5]

what difference does it make when your house is nothing but a Concrete slab?